The Childhood Garden of Kass Beauchamp a.k.a. Katherine Mansfield

Getting up to speed

2009-09-18T16:41:00.002+12:00

I have been reading KM’s NZ stories for half an hour each night and am enjoying the exercise. I confess I don’t like her stories and I don’t like short stories in general – but I am treating them as gardening books, looking for clues about plants and gardens of her time, and quotes to inspire our design, plant selection and combinations.

“Above the carpet bedding, on one hand, there is a green hedge, and above the hedge a long row of cabbage trees. I stare up at them and suddenly the green hedge is a stave, and the cabbage trees, now high, now low, have become an arrangement of notes – a curious, pattering, native melody.” (In The Botanical Gardens, 1907)

I am having trouble working out which stories are set at 25 Tinakori Rd?

Gardening by committee.

2009-09-13T15:48:00.003+12:00

'Can we?' or 'can't we?' 'I love it!', 'I don't!'

The issues confronting a group of gardeners at a heritage garden are many and varied. At the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace garden we are bound by the dates of Mansfield's life, 1888-1923. We constantly ask ourselves, 'is it of the period?' Whether it is design or planting we must think of the Victorian settlers in colonial Wellington.

Of course with this in mind we have plenty of scope so personal preferences come into play. There are 5 of us, which is good if it comes down to a vote but I prefer discussion and compromise and this creates some fun.

But we all agree, change is necessary in the garden. We aim to have a garden which will provide interest throughout the year. Our designer, Rachael, already has her head around the big picture and we, the gardeners, no longer go just to weed!

First design date

2009-09-02T14:02:00.007+12:00

I visited the garden and met the ladies. We had a lovely time looking at the plants. Bethney brought along one of her books of rare and unusual plants, every one of which she is dying to try out. Penny is an unknown entity, mysterious behind her dark glasses. She kept her head down and gardened the whole time. Bee beamed in, full of life and stories about her writing projects. Susie showed me around, inside & out, and introduced me to the house volunteers – the guardian angels.

It seems the garden was originally restored along with the house about 20 years ago, but it was let go for a while. Then a couple of years ago, Susie was approached. She built a gardening team, and has been sorting and weeding, and building up the soil and garden and plant collection. They have reached a point where they want help with the layout and design. I can see it needs organising, some structure and judicial selection of precious plants; but most of all it needs some pizazz. This project has a lot of potential. I am very flattered to be involved, and I am looking forward to working with the ladies, finding out more about Victorian gardens, and shaping a garden for visitors to enjoy.

Mansfield would approve

2009-08-23T08:09:00.002+12:00

She would approve of our project and of the women undertaking it
Except for me, each member of the gardening team is a writer. Bethney and Bee are regularly in print. Bethney writes a weekly garden article for the Saturday Dominion Post. Bee is a social historian and is the author of various books, including Lady Painters, a beautiful book about botanical women artists. Penny has had a long career in journalism and Rachael is a lawyer and garden designer.
All of us have a passion and love for plants and Mansfield herself would love to have been a gardener.
“I think I shall become a very violent gardener. I shall have shelves of tomes and walk about the house whispering the names of flowers”

Prologue

2009-08-22T16:46:00.001+12:00

I have been talking to Bethney & Susie now for a few months about their KM garden project, in the abstract when they pop in or call to ask about this or that topiary. They have tentatively invited me around for a visit, which I have mentally parked as getting around to one day. However, Susie rang to order some garden supplies, and talk turned to KM’s garden. I really like Susie and she has hooked me in. I can’t quite remember how she did it. But it’s a great project, with an interesting bunch of women. I don’t even like Katherine Mansfield; but I am in!

On Saturday morning, a parcel arrived. Susie has given me a book of KM’s NZ stories selected by Vincent O’Sullivan, with a fabulous picture postcard portrait in red of KM painted by Anne Astelle Rice, 1918. Susie is all class.

A garden journey.

2009-08-19T21:02:00.000+12:00

At the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace garden in Wellington we are creating a unique heritage garden incorporating the flowers, trees and shrubs that Mansfield refers to in her stories, letters and diaries. When she was born at 25 Tinakori Road in 1888 there was very little in the way of a garden. It was only after the restoration of the house was completed in 1988 that the garden was developed in the early 20th century Victorian style. Through the intervening years this garden has been maintained by volunteers.

The current gardening team is reviewing the garden's design and content.

Our objective is to develop a garden that is true to Mansfield's life, 1888-1923. The design will reflect a Victorian-Colonial middle-class New Zealand garden filled with the plants that Mansfield loved.

Join us through the ups and downs, the sweat and tears, fun and pleasure a project like this can offer, from its beginning to its magnificent conclusion.